Meet the Press today aired an interview host Kristen Welker taped yesterday with President Donald J. Trump. It showed Trump losing control and walking out of the interview when Welker challenged his insistence that the 2020 presidential election and the recent California election were rigged.
Weirdly, he kept referring to the U.S. as âyourâ country when he was speaking to Welker, and to âyourâ elections. It was almost as if he was a foreign observer offering criticism of the U.S.
As Welker repeatedly pointed out that he has never produced any evidence for his assertions, he got madder and madder, calling the mediaâNBC, ABC, CBS, CNNâone-sided and crooked. He insisted âthereâs more evidence than ever presented.â When she asked again if he had evidence, he said: âAll I have to do is look.â When she continued to ask for evidence, he said: âYou're either crooked or you're stupid.â
Finally, he got up, pulled off his mic, and left, telling her: âLetâs call it quits because I've had enough. Thank you darling. Have a good time.â
One of the things Trump spat at Welker was that â[a] country can never be great with a dishonest press.â With this statement directed at the legacy media, once again, Trump illustrated that he was accusing his opponents of what he, himself, is doing, a classic authoritarian technique to muddy the waters so people stop trying to figure out what is real and cease to believe anything.
Scott Pelley, who was fired last week from 60 Minutes after thirty-seven years as a CBS correspondent, spoke with Lulu Garcia-Navarro of the New York Times in an interview that appeared today. Pelley explained that CBS News director Bari Weiss, appointed after Trump loyalist David Ellison took over the network, asked for changes to a story about the anti-ICE and Border Patrol protests in Minneapolis over the winter.
Hours before airing, he explained, after the story had been approved, Weiss sent an email to Pelleyâs boss asking them to make the protesters look more violent and to say that before an officer shot her, Renee Good was driving toward him.
But she wasnât. Pelley continued: âOn the video, you see the officer standing slightly off the front of the car. And you clearly see Ms. Goodâs wheels turned completely as far as they will go, away from the officer. But he shoots her in the head, kills her, and says something about her that I canât repeat in polite company.
âWe have gone out of our way in our plan from the very beginning to show the protesters for the responsibility that they had. We had already scrubbed the video archives, looking for those scenes. Somehow that wasnât enough for Ms. Weiss. The video showed that the officer wasnât standing in front of the car and she wasnât driving toward him, but thatâs what the president said about that, and thatâs the way she wanted it described.â
Pelley said: âThere was a thumb on the scale for the presidentâs version of events that I felt was a level of political influence that I had never seen in 37 years at CBS News.â
In her interview, Welker challenged Trump over more than his election denial. He didnât appear to like questions about the economy or his war on Iran, either.
Meeting with Trump in Wisconsin, at his teamâs request, Welker asked Trump about the economy, noting that âGas is up. Diesel is up.â Trump answered: âIt's all coming down as soon as the warâs over.â Welker continued: âSeventy percent of farmers say they can't afford fertilizer.â Trump responded: âThe farmers are doing very well.â He added: âAll of them support me because thereâs nobody been better to farmers.â He continued: âYou know I had a great first term. I had the greatest economy ever. And you know what? This oneâs blowing it away.â
As for Iran, Trump denied to Welker that he had ever promised to stay out of foreign wars, although Jane C. Timm of NBC News reminded readers that he told Pennsylvania voters in 2024: âI will not send you to fight and die in stupid foreign wars that never end. I will not send our sons and daughters to go fight for a war in a country that youâve never heard of. Weâre not going to do it. Weâre going to bring our troops home, and weâre going to focus on America First.â
In the interview, Trump pushed back on the idea that he needs to settle the Iran crisis quickly despite his promises to end it fast. He compared his Iran adventure, which so far has lasted just over three months, to the Vietnam War at nineteen years, the Korean War, and World War II. Here, too, he used that odd âyou,â as if he were looking at the U.S. from outside. He suggested that the loss of thirteen U.S. military personnel in Iran is light compared to the losses of those other wars.
Despite his administration's insistence that he doesnât need congressional approval for his war on Iran because itâs not a war, Trump repeatedly referred to it as a war.
Trump also told Welker he hopes to revive the $1.776 billion slush fund his acting attorney general Todd Blanche said was dead.
Trump increasingly looks like a loser, and as he does so, more and more people appear willing to challenge him.
They are following in the footsteps of CNNâs Daniel Dale, who has fact-checked Trump for years now. Dale reported yesterday that a statistic about Black employment Trump cited in a speech in Wisconsin on Friday was so obviously false even Trump questioned it.
âAnd weâve also had huge drops inâand Iâll tell you, this is something thatâs amazing: African American unemployment is now doing better than itâs ever done,â Trump said. âAnd I donât know where that stat came from, but Iâll take it,â he said. âI donât know where the hell that stat comeâbut weâll take it.â
Yesterday, Susan Douglas and Paul Romano, a political organizer and a Vietnam War veteran respectively, represented by the Public Integrity Project, filed a federal lawsuit to stop the Ultimate Fighting Club (UFC) cage fights at the White House on Trumpâs birthday, a week from today. Fighters are expected to âconduct the ceremonial weigh-ins and face-offs at the Lincoln Memorial, make pre-fight walkouts from the Oval Office, and do combat in a massive structure now under construction just steps from the Executive Residence.â
âThis plan is deeply corrupt,â the lawsuit alleges. It is being organized by the UFC, âwhose chief executive, Dana White, is a close friend and ally of the President. The President is giving White and his company what none have enjoyed before: unfettered access to the White House and Lincoln Memorial to stage a private, for-profit sports event, with all the promotional and branding opportunities that accompany such access.â One executive recently called the event âthe greatest earned-marketing tool of all time.â
The lawsuit notes that â[f]ederal law tightly restricts private use of the national capitalâs most sacred monumental spacesâ and that Trump and the administration appear to be using the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence to relax those rules. But, it notes, the UFC fight is tied to Trumpâs 80th birthday rather than the nationâs 250th, and is being organized not by the congressional planning body for the 250th, but by UFC.
The suit lists the many ways in which the UFC fight is a money-making venture for the company and for Trump, including the fact that he bought between $15,000 and $50,000 of stock in the parent company of UFC, TKO Holding Group.
Trump has announced he will attend Game 3 of the NBA Finals between the New York Knicks and the San Antonio Spurs at Madison Square Garden tomorrow night, forcing street closures and Secret Service perimeters for the event. Today, fans expressed their fury at the news that they would have to arrive at least two hours early and that he was âruining the vibeâ of the New York moment.
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